


A Practical Guide to Awkward Conversations

by UniquelyEqual



Category: A Practical Guide to Evil - erraticerrata
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:20:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23592985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniquelyEqual/pseuds/UniquelyEqual
Summary: Just a bunch of words about an early Squire/Heiress Relationship because I have neither the time nor the creative energy to actually write a full fic for this.
Relationships: Catherine Foundling/Akua Sahelian | Heiress | Diabolist
Comments: 2
Kudos: 34





	A Practical Guide to Awkward Conversations

**Author's Note:**

> Just to get it out of my head.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Captain and the Black Knight have a long overdue conversation about what Catherine has been getting up to

Note: testing on whether or not Hell really has no fury like a woman scorned had to be suspended, though it is safe to say that it is very dependent on the Hell and the Woman in question.  
-Dread Emperor Malignant II

The Black Knight had been surprised, when he’d first discovered the stubble that was sprouting on his cheeks even now. He had not, until the moment he had looked into his mirror to see it, considered himself a man that would grow facial hair, and thus he had never been one.  
It had taken a while for him to find out why exactly his beard had begun to grow, and when he had figured it out he had almost, almost fallen into the trap of not accepting what was obviously true.  
Then he had gone to talk to the one woman who might actually have some useful advice.

Sabah, to say the least, had been utterly delighted, and his protestations that his fatherhood was only a factor as far as his Role in a Story was concerned had fallen on utterly deaf ears.

“Do not tell Catherine”, he said now, an hour and more wine then was perhaps entirely prudent in, eliciting another of the giant womans deep chuckles.

“Oh, don’t worry”, she grunted, her amusement still plainly audible in her voice, “I wouldn’t even dream of taking that conversation away from you”

He grimaced, took another deep swallow from the wine that stood in front of him.

“I assume it was the Welps dalliance that brought this about”, the Captain asked, the amusement abruptly banished from her voice. “I still don’t understand why you haven’t put your foot down on it.”

The Black Knights’ grimace deepend as he busied himself with the wine, stalling for a little moment.  
He had to forcibly relax his fingers to avoid breaking the bottles neck. Those emotions were new to him, and not entirely welcome, an intrusion into his usually orderly mind as the stubbles were an intrusion on his face.

For a short moment, he hesitated, before reminding himself of the wards in place around the tent, put there specifically for the purpose of preventing unwanted listeners.

He shook his head, clearing it of the alcohols effects in an instance, then he stood up, crossed the room in an instant, and opened the trunk he used to transport his books.

The books he came back with were of a massively worse quality then anything else in his possession, put together using cheap magic,cheaper ink, and paper that always seemed like it was mere seconds away from falling out of the books binding. The Black Knight had gone through great pains to hide them, placing them behind books he knew only he would ever pull out of the trunk voluntarily. Of course, that had been to no avail when it came to Alaya, who had taken great and almost sadistic delight in sending him similar texts from her own collection, nor from the Scribe, who had almost, almost grumbled before delivering a literal crate of books of a similar nature from some of the more far-flung parts of Calernia.

The two examples he put in front of Sabah were written in Lower Miezan and Chantant, and had both come from the collection of some Merchants Daughter in Summerholm, if the scribbles inside the front cover were to be believed.

Amadeus had rarely seen the other woman utterly and completely surprised, and never as outright flabbergasted as she was now.

It took her a moment, before she recovered from the covers, both showing crude yet surprisingly detailed drawings of an improbably muscled bare-chested men, both titled in a manner so similar it almost suggested plagiarism.

“You can’t be serious”, she finally said, and all that the Black Knight could do was wince.

The giant woman looked him straight in the eyes, searching for some sign that he was joking, that this was some kind of elaborate prank that she was not privy to.

She found nothing of the sort, and sat back in her chair, very slowly: “Explain”, she said, her voice flat. “This better be good”, said her face, and Amadeus took some time to organize his thoughts before answering to satisfy that expectation.

“From what I can tell, the plan to seduce the Squire originated from the High Lady Tasia, though I am not sure whether she came up with it herself or whether the Heiress convinced her of attempting it after determining that the Squire may be susceptible to such an attempt”

Separating it into its components like that helped, the Black Knight had found, to keep the emotions the story had forced on him out of it.

“I got blindsided by it, and so when I caught on to what had happened, the relationship had already progressed too far for me to be able to intervene without potentially causing more harm than good”

He shrugged, put his fingers onto the books in front of him: “So I did some research instead, mostly to stop myself from having a very, very stern and utterly counterproductive conversation with the Squire”

Sabah frowned, clearly unconvinced: “So you let the Heiress, a Sahelian, one of the line that is highly adept at exactly this sort of thing, continue whispering what might as well be poison into Catherines ear on the strength of some badly written Proceran Nonsense? This isn’t like you at all, Amadeus.”

The Black Knight grimaced:”There’s many stories like this, in many cultures, and the fact that the Heiress and the Squire are from entirely different Backgrounds does not help. But both the Praesi and the Callowan variant of this story have something in common: trying to prevent the forbidden love does not help at all”

Sabah shook her head: “Yet deliberately turning a blind eye does not help either, does it, Amadeus? That is a story too, and one that does not end well for anyone involved.”

The Black Knight nodded, taking his time answering, deliberating over his next few words: “I came to much the same conclusion, after Marchford, and so I looked for parallels between all these stories, to find something, anything I might use.”

“And you found something, I assume?”, the Captain asked, leaning forward despite herself.

“Trust”, Amadeus said.

“You see, from what I can tell, I have been drawn into what is essentially an indirect confrontation between me and the High Lady Tasia”, he elaborated, after Sabah’s scoff told him to cut out the crypticism, “and in all these stories, the parent that extends the most trust, that gives their offspring the room to make their own decisions and their own mistakes is the parent that ends up…” he hesitated for a moment, searching for the right concept “Well, winning is not, perhaps, the correct term here, but in a better spot then the other parent”

The scowl that had appeared on Sabah's face disappeared, after a short moment, replaced by an approving smile.“You talked to her, didn’t you?”, she said, and her smile grew into a wide, happy grin when he nodded in response. “Right after Marchford, yes. We had a long, earnest conversation about how I did not entirely approve of the relationship and how Sahelians could not be trusted in manners such as this, and then she told me how the Heiress has changed over the course of their relationship, how she was bantering with the Archer and discussing Magic Theory with the Apprentice and how she’s apparently even begun respecting the Adjutant as an actual person rather than misjudging him as a tool.”

Sabah raised an eyebrow at that, and Amadeus nodded once again: “There was a fight between the two involved in that particular instance, from what I’ve gathered.”

“It still may be fake”, the Captain ventured, and once more the Black Knight nodded the affirmative.

“It might well be”, he stated, “at least it probably started out that way,Hells, Catherine herself told me it probably was, in the beginning. She also told me that she believes it has changed into something else, since then” Amadeus sighed as he remembered that conversation, rubbing the stubble where it had begun to itch again: “I told her that I trusted her judgement, that I trusted her to make the right call, when the time came, and that I would be there for her no matter which choice she would make.”

The Silence between the Black Knight and the Captain spanned into what felt like eternity.

It was Sabah who finally broke it: “That seems like the correct thing to do.”

The Black Knight nodded.

“Can’t have been easy regardless”

The Black Knight shook his head.

There was another long moment of silence.

“I’m going to go through this with my own children, aren’t I.”

The Black Knight nodded again, glad to see something like a smile on his comrades face.

“I think Catherine will make the right call in this, in the end”, Sabah ventured, pouring herself some more wine.

“Oh, I trust that she will”, the Black Knight said, holding out his own goblet. “I am still not entirely convinced this will not end in tears or blood.”

The finished that bottle of wine, chatting amicable about this and that, and when dawn broke the Black Knight had almost managed to stop worrying.

Almost, but not quite.


End file.
